Passengers Miss Ship---Sue RCCI???

[kitty9]

Passengers who were off on their own in St. Maartin and miss the ship, hired an attorney to sue RCCI because the ship left without them. Are you kidding me???? If this even makes it to a judge, that would be insane. The Salt Lake City attorney for the group said the passengers believe that the cruise line needs to tell passengers that the ship will leave if they don't make it back on time, plus there needs to be something in place to get the numbskulls to the next port. Were these passengers illiterate? Every time I've been on a cruise, it's always been printed in many places that if you miss the ship after being out on your own, it's up to you to get to the next port at your own cost. Just goes to show you can find a lawyer to sue for anything.

[teedee]

I saw that a few days ago. I was surprised they even found an attorney to take the case. It's very clearly written in the cruise contract that if you miss the ship it's up to you to get to the next port.

 

Terri

[joelmarj]

These are the types of frivolous lawsuits that make my head hurt. Suing for their own stupidity! And this is where lawyers get their bad reputation. There's always one thats willing to take on these rediculous cases.

[smeyer418]

I saw that a few days ago. I was surprised they even found an attorney to take the case. It's very clearly written in the cruise contract that if you miss the ship it's up to you to get to the next port.

 

Terri

 

Its the kids father. This has been kickjed around a lot...

[suzeyQ]

I'm a lawyer and it makes me sick to see these kinds of lawsuits being filed, even if it is the kids' father. We seem to be living in a world where people are no longer accountable for their own actions - when something happens due to a person's own fault, they go out and sue. Maybe it's a way of making themselves feel less like idiots.

[CaribbeanBound]

Not only should the family be made to pay court costs and HUGE punitive damages for the frivolous suit, the lawyer that files the suit should have to pay double.

[superjerryw]

I suppose that if they missed their flight to get to the ship they would have sued the airline since the plane should have waited for them as well.....:rolleyes:

[Longboysfan]

Someone with nothing better to do. Sad.

[iandjm]

What pathetic, low life idiots!!!

 

the need to get a life in my opinion

 

Ian :mad:

[newmexicoNita]

Passengers who were off on their own in St. Maartin and miss the ship, hired an attorney to sue RCCI because the ship left without them. Are you kidding me???? If this even makes it to a judge, that would be insane. The Salt Lake City attorney for the group said the passengers believe that the cruise line needs to tell passengers that the ship will leave if they don't make it back on time, plus there needs to be something in place to get the numbskulls to the next port. Were these passengers illiterate? Every time I've been on a cruise, it's always been printed in many places that if you miss the ship after being out on your own, it's up to you to get to the next port at your own cost. Just goes to show you can find a lawyer to sue for anything.

Maybe these people couldn't read or write English. this would explain why they were not aware of the policy???? LOL You know there has to be some kind of control over these law suits? Torte (spelling again) reform I think must be the answer. I don't want to get into a long political discussion on these boars as there are places for that, but this is crazy. Can someone give me some ideas on what I may be able to sue someone for? I could sure use a few extra bucks!!!! NMNita

[Cam6959]

NMNita - you can sue anyone for anything! :eek: You go girl! If I was you I would sue the cruise line for not giving you a free cruise at least once a year! They owe you!:D :D

[kitty9]

So it was kids that missed the ship? I hadn't heard who was involved, but if it were kids, where were the parents? Maybe RCCI should sue the parents for not taking care of their kids the way they should have. Does anyone know how old these kids were? And if they were younger teens, why were they allowed to be off on their own with no parental control?

[superjerryw]

Can someone give me some ideas on what I may be able to sue someone for? I could sure use a few extra bucks!!!! NMNita

 

I'm going to sue the cruise line because I got a sunburn the last time. The contract should have warned me about the possibility of this happening. If Celebrity employees saw me sitting by the pool in my swimsuit they should have cautioned me about the need to use sunscreen. Heck, they should have provided me with sunscreen and offered to rub it on my back. Service has certainly gone down the drain.....:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Iamthesea]

Is there an article somewhere that I could read?

[mctrekkie]

There is an article; I just can't find it right now! I remember it was from the Salt Lake City area. hope that helps!

[superjerryw]

Is there an article somewhere that I could read?

 

There's a link right at the top of this page.

 

News: Passengers Miss Ship, Sue Cruise Line

[jimbug]

Along the same lines, when we were returning home from our most recent cruise, my friend and I flew back on different flights. I made a connection from Ft. Lauderdale to Dallas and then on to Oklahoma City. My Dallas connection, though delayed due to bad weather, did arrive in OKC. My friend was booked on the last flight into OKC that night, which she ended up missing, because weather delayed her arrival into DFW.

 

She was so furious that she had to rent a car to drive the 2 1/2 hours home from DFW (yeah, it's just about a 32-min flight)...she is talking about how it is American Airlines' fault, bla bla bla. There's a much longer story to this, but I just can't believe the gall of some people who believe that the carrier is always to blame...never themselves, and never the weather, heaven forbid.

[mlbcruiser]

First, let me say that IF there was nothing ship-related that caused the kids (or adults?) to be late getting back to the ship, yes, the lawsuit is a joke. The ships DO ALWAYS mention during the cruise at various points by the cruise directors, etc., that they WILL leave late passengers. But I do wonder what all the circumstances were. The reason?

 

A few years ago there was a mixup re: time when we were in St. Maarten w/RCCL. We had been there several times before this. This time there had been some confusion regarding the local time and ship's time, and which was the time to return to the ship. We asked when disembarking the little ferry (from the port area to downtown Phillipsburg) what time we needed to be back at the ferry dock to return to our ship in time. We were given a time. Much later in the day, after going to a beach, etc., we shopped around a bit in Phillipsburg. Our daughter was 17 and a senior in h.s. She had 3 friends w/her and 2 of them had been to St. Maarten before and knew the "ropes" about getting back to the ship, etc. Our dd is also well traveled and we trusted her and the others to make it back to the ship o.k. There were also a couple other sets of parents still in the area shopping. Before we let the kids head off, we DID, however, double check with a worker on the ferry dock regarding the time of the last ferry, and made sure he was talking about local time. So there was supposedly one hour left before the last ferry. Or so we thought. My dh and I got into a ferry and just as we left the dock another ferry was shoving off. We heard a lady screech something like, "What?! THIS is the LAST ferry?! Wait!", and we couldn't hear the rest. We asked around and several others on our boat thought that there was an hr. before the last ferry as well. But a worker on our boat confirmed the boat behind us WAS the last one! To make a long story short, everyone we knew got back to the ship - only by cab after hearing through the grapevine that the last ferry had gone. Our next door neighbors happened to hook up w/our kids when all of them were getting cabs. Later on in the evening there seemed to be a lot of discussion around the ship about what was the correct time on board and on land in St. Maarten that day. Lots of people apparently had not understood correctly. Also, our ship did leave St. Maarten later than scheduled, but I have no idea why. That is the ONLY time we ever ran into such a problem and I've been on 20 cruises. Go figure. So I just have to wonder if something like our time mixup happened in this case?

 

I do want to mention as well, that when we got back to the ship we told the guards at the gangway that we knew our dd and some other h.s. seniors were still downtown and the last ferry had come and gone. They did check in their machine to make sure she wasn't on the ship and said they would call our cabin once she was on the ship, and, if necessary, get help on land. About 20 min. later we got the call she was back before she even got to the cabin. So I have to say, I felt they were willing to do what was in their power to do.

[wrp96]

Along the same lines, when we were returning home from our most recent cruise, my friend and I flew back on different flights. I made a connection from Ft. Lauderdale to Dallas and then on to Oklahoma City. My Dallas connection, though delayed due to bad weather, did arrive in OKC. My friend was booked on the last flight into OKC that night, which she ended up missing, because weather delayed her arrival into DFW.

 

She was so furious that she had to rent a car to drive the 2 1/2 hours home from DFW (yeah, it's just about a 32-min flight)...she is talking about how it is American Airlines' fault, bla bla bla. There's a much longer story to this, but I just can't believe the gall of some people who believe that the carrier is always to blame...never themselves, and never the weather, heaven forbid.

 

Hey, I think I was flying home through DFW at the same time as you. I probably was trying to fly home the day after you but the weather was even worse. You would not believe the number of people complaining about whichever airline they were flying on the way to the hotel, or on Monday morning as they were still trying to get flights back to normal.

[Cracker Ken]

These "shake down artist", or, excuse me, lawyers sicken me to no end. If they had to take these silly cases on an hourly basis, there would be far less suits. Instead, they get a contengency fee, like 30% if it settles pre-suit, and 40% if it goes to trial. As the good lawyer mentioned above, it seems as though nobody is responsible for themselves anymore. Everything has to be someone else's fault, everything. I work for a large property/casualty insurance carrier, and I see this mess all the time. Someone can fall over one of those yellow concrete things in a parking lot that keep cars organized in parking spaces, and they will sue (I've see exactly that). There's a hole in a parking lot with orange cones around it, you don't look where you are walking and fall in. Not a problem sue. People hear about this stuff and get appauled, but I dare say it's far, far, worse than most of you realize.

 

Now, I'm seeing the "stuff" creep into cruise lines. A good example is the case against NCL that was hit by the huge unexpected wave in the Atlantic (Dawn?). They shook down NCL for over $3 million. For what? I'd sure like to know. The incident is unfortunate, but it was an act of God, or nature, totally unexpected and unpreventable. Where was the duty owed and the duty breached on the part of NCL? I doubt it existed. If the cruise lines don't wise up and start forcing these cases into court, and refuse to be shook down for cash by these low-life's, we will soon see a significant increase in our cruise fares. We have also heard of the case where some lawyer is suing "X" because they didn't warn people about taking non-ship sponsored tours (due to that excursion bus crash). The time is right for the cruise lines to get nasty about these frivolous suits before it goes completely out of control. I would imagine that most of the cruise lines are self-insureds, so the money may not come from an insurance company. Are people not wise enough to know that the seas can be an unpredictable and sometimes dreadful place to be? There's at least one TV lawyer advertising to take on cases from people who get hurt or sick on a cruise ship.

 

By the way, have you bought a ladder lately? How about a lawn mower, or a string of Christmas lights? How many insultingly stupid stickers or labels were on the items? I can just hear an injured person (or his survivors) now - "He didn't realize that you could get your foot cut off under a running lawn mower, and you didn't tell him not to do so!!!" That's why the labels are there now. I cut 6 labels off a string of Christmas lights a couple of years ago. Perhaps there will eventually be a separate insert in the papers they give you before getting on the ship, warning you about every possible contengency (if that's even possible). Then, someone will sue because they lost it, and nobody checked with them to make sure they read it. Please!.......:rolleyes:

 

It's always somethin'.......

 

Ken

[thomasale]

unbelievable...but we see it every day

[superjerryw]

There are just too many people trying to exploit the legal system and make a fast buck because they see no down side to what they are doing. When someone brings one of these ridiculous law suits the judge should be able to deem it frivolous and disbar the attorney and fine the person bringing the suit for wasting the courts time. A legal system that allows people to sue a restaurant because they got fat eating the food is in need of an overhaul.

[Nliedel]

All I can say is, good luck with that. :)

[metrowon]

I have at least 8 pictures, of persons standing there at the dock, looking in horror, as their ship has pulled up the ropes, and left them behind. If I,m not mistaken, I think one of the last things I see when disembarking for an excursion, is the ship's time posted..Ships time is the only time to be concerned with, as we cruise through time zones, especially westbound. :) Ok kids, you just go off and have fun, and we'll see ya later, NOT! I bet that made for an interesting group pic? :D Metrowon